WASHINGTON, February 6. /TASS/. The Senate of the US Congress voted on Wednesday to acquit US President Donald Trump on both articles of impeachment - abuse of power and obstruction of the Congress.
The final vote of Trump’s impeachment trial was broadcast live by the Senate’s website.
The results of the vote on both charges were below the two-third majority, or approval of 67 senators, which was needed for Trump’s conviction and removal from office. The outcome of the vote is final and cannot be appealed.
A total of 52 senators voted against the first article of the impeachment, 48 - in favor. The results of the second vote were largely similar, with 53 senators voting against Trump’s impeachment and 47 in favor of it. Former US presidential candidate, Senator Mitt Romney (Utah) was the only Republican member who supported the first article. He became the first senator in the US history who voted in favor of removing his fellow party member from the presidential post. It was also expected that at least one moderate member of the Democratic party would vote against the impeachment, but this did not happen.
The results of the vote were not surprising, given the fact that the Republic party holds 53 seats in the Senate out of 100.
Trump said in a Twitter post he would make a statement on the issue on Thursday.
"I will be making a public statement tomorrow at 12:00pm from the WhiteHouse to discuss our Country’s VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!" Trump wrote.
Republicans rejoice
The Democratic Party of the United States attempted to tamper with the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the upcoming presidential vote by trying to impeach President Donald Trump, the US leader’s campaign office said shortly after his acquittal.
"This terrible ordeal was always a campaign tactic to invalidate the 2016 votes of 63 million Americans and was a transparent effort to interfere with the 2020 election only nine months away," reads the statement, signed by Brad Parscale, Trump 2020 campaign manager.
The statement also claims that Democrats "know they can’t beat him [Trump], so they had to impeach him."
"This impeachment hoax will go down as the worst miscalculation in American political history," the statement says.
A similar statement was issued by the White House shortly after.
"This entire effort by the Democrats was aimed at overturning the results of the 2016 election and interfering with the 2020 election," the document says.
"Today, the sham impeachment attempt concocted by Democrats ended in the full vindication and exoneration of President Donald J. Trump. As we have said all along, he is not guilty," the White House said. "The Senate voted to reject the baseless articles of impeachment, and only the President’s political opponents - all Democrats, and one failed Republican presidential candidate - voted for the manufactured impeachment articles."
According to the White House, attempting to deprive the president of his due process rights "has now become a consistent tradition for Democrats."
The document says that Rep. Adam Schiff, the head of the House Intelligence Committee and one of those who initiated the process, "lied to Congress and the American people with a totally made up statement about the President’s phone call."
"Speaker Nancy Pelosi also lied to the American people about the need to swiftly pass impeachment articles they dreamt up, only to sit on them for a month before sending over to the Senate," the statement reads. "In the Senate, the Democrats continued to make their political motivations clear - Rep. Schiff proclaimed the issues ‘cannot be decided at the ballot box’ - proving once again they think they know better than the voters of this country."
"Throughout this wholly corrupt process, President Trump successfully advanced the interests of the United States and remained focused on the issues that matter to Americans," the White House added. "The President is pleased to put this latest chapter of shameful behavior by the Democrats in the past, and looks forward to continuing his work on behalf of the American people in 2020 and beyond."
Democrats angered
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi accused Republican senators, who voted to acquit President Donald Trump of impeachment charges on Wednesday, of betraying the American constitution.
"Sadly, because of the Republican Senate’s betrayal of the Constitution, the President remains an ongoing threat to American democracy, with his insistence that he is above the law and that he can corrupt the elections if he wants to," Pelosi said in a statement, posted on her website.
"Our Founders put safeguards in the Constitution to protect against a rogue president," she continued. "They never imagined that they would at the same time have a rogue leader in the Senate who would cowardly abandon his duty to uphold the Constitution."
"Today, the President and Senate Republicans have normalized lawlessness and rejected the system of checks and balances of our Constitution," she added.
"In December, the House defended democracy by passing two articles of impeachment to hold the President accountable," the House speaker said. "The House will continue to protect and defend the checks and balances in the Constitution that safeguard our Republic, both in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion. Democrats will continue to defend our democracy For The People."
Trump's impeachment saga
The current row in the United States flared up over Trump’s telephone conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Zelensky. The Democratic Party-controlled House of Representatives launched an impeachment procedure against the US leader on September 4. The Democrats argued that Trump tried to persuade Zelensky to investigate the activities of former US Vice-President Joseph Biden and his son in Ukraine in exchange for financial and military assistance to Kiev.
Biden is one of Trump’s most likely rivals in the presidential election due in November 2020. The Democrats claim that the incumbent president exerted pressure on Zelensky with the aim of securing Kiev’s support in efforts to discredit Biden, thus improving his chances of being re-elected for a second term. Zelensky said Trump had never exerted pressure on him.
The impeachment procedure was led by the Chairman of the US Supreme Court. For more than two weeks, the House of Representatives acted as a party to the prosecution, and senators played the role of a jury.
Trump has become the fourth US head of state to face the impeachment procedure, after Andrew Johnson (1868), Richard Nixon (1974) and Bill Clinton (1998-1999). Johnson and Clinton were acquitted; Nixon stepped down before the start of the hearings.